The effect of rapid, slow or medium growth on fruit and vegetables

The article below. appeared in the Geelong Advertiser in 1850. It should appeal to all veg and fruit gardeners. It’s full of sound advice and common sense, expressed in a somewhat idiosyncratic style. I found it while researching another piece about the relationship between flavour and terroir (for want of a better word). I was so enchanted by it, that I thought the world would be a better place if it was more widely publicised. I have tidied up some of the spelling, and introduced paragraph breaks for the sake of legibility.You can find the original on http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/93133505 if you’re interested. It’s a cracker.

‘There is a vast difference between the productions of the garden, according to the mode of treating them, the size of everything, always affecting its flavour. The first consideration therefore is, do you want strength of flavour or other wise?

Generally speaking, we want vegetables to be mild; therefore, they
cannot be grown too large. Generally speaking, again, we require fruit to be
highly flavoured, and therefore they can be grown too large. Had not the eye as well as the palate to be pleased, we should never care to have fruit of any
kind beyond an ordinary size, but in vegetables the more rapid the growth the
better.

Cabbages, onions, radishes, spinach, cauliflowers, brocoli, etc, are
praised for mildness, and condemned when they are of strong flavour. The
former is always the result of rapid, free growth; the latter, of a stunted growth. A cucumber is milder, celery is milder, even horse-radish, stringent as it is, is very much milder, when grown rapidly, than when its growth is slow; the Spanish and Portuguese onion is mild compared with ours, because its grow this free and rapid. The Spanish onion seed grown here is never so mild, because it is longer making its growth, and less when it is grown.

Fruit has its season of growth, like anything else, and the skill of the gardener is used to grow it large. The excellence of fruit is, stupidly enough, to he decided by its size in almost all cases, when in nine cases out of ten, nay ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it loses flavour according to its beauty. No one can complain in a general way, of the want of flavour in a grape, such as we see at shows. It would be affectation to say that a splendid large muscat of Alexandria, was, when well ripened, short of quality, but by comparison, that is to say by the side of one that had been the whole season growing only half the size, it would be found weaker and less rich.

Nobody will venture to say that a five pound queen pine is so good as one of two or three, grown in the same time. Nobody will venture to show flavour to a melon of excessive growth against one of moderate growth of the same sort. The Jersey charmontelle pears are handsome fruits, as compared with the English grown, and bring more money, but they are no more to be compared for flavour than a turnip is

with an orange. We do not complain of people’s taste; we are simply stating facts, and showing that according to what you want so ought yin to provide. If we wanted currants for wine, we should not look for fine fruit small currants are more highly flavoured. Let a red Warrinton gooseberry grow of its ordinary garden size, and the flavour is exquisite ; grow it as large as you can for show, and it is absolutely washy in comparison. Let there be found on a pear tree, say on a wall, for which all things requisite have been done; let there be found an ill-formed fruit, one that has been stunted, and eat that, and compare it with one of the finest, and you will at once see that the uniting of the slow growth, and the high flavour, go together.

But we must not confound this subject by considering all large fruit are of interior flavour but that large fruit of a particular kind are worse flavored than ordinary sized ones of the same kind, that is weaker flavored, which in fruit is always an objection, but in vegetables an excellence. In vegetables, the younger they are, the better they are, but this is only in cases where the growth is checked as it grows old. A summer cabbage is always mild, but it will continue mild as long as the growth is not checked, so that until it gets hard in tile heart, and thereby checked in its growth, it will eat well. Thus is it that a white, close cabbage, as hard as it can well be, will be nice and fine when properly cooked , but if allowed. to remain on the ground in that state, or be a few days cut, it becomes in either case rank and strong. Turnips sown at a good season grow quickly, and taken while in growth will be fine, but the same seed sawn in a dry season, advances but slowly, and eats strong, and if left a little. longer on the ground, they become woody and stringy, as well as hot and strong.

We might run through the whole list of fruits and vegetables, and prove these facts in each and every case, but we have been content to mention those with which our readers must be familiar, because facts brought home to one’s mind bring conviction. Of those proofs, connected with vegetables, enough has been said, but perhaps as regards fruit, people are not so easily convinced, because, excepting those who can taste under the same circumstances, none can form a proper judgment. If we take a well ripened bunch of grapes, and find amongst the berries some small ones as fullly ripe, they are always of fine flavor. If an orange tree happens to have, as those who grow them must have seen, two or three very much smaller than the general crop, they will be found richer, that is stronger in flavor. Take a middle sized strawberry of any sort grown in poor soil, and the smaller ones will be the sweetest and best; not but that the starving –system may be carried too far. Indeed, if the vine be starved too much, it will not ripen its fruit, but even the vine may be grown upon the hot gravelly or chalky soil, where the fruit will not come half so large, but that fruit nevertheless is of the highest possible quality.

Let the pine grower, who finds a deformed, stunted unmarketable fruit, and eats it at home, say, if he once in a hundred times ate a well-grown specimen so fine and rich in flavor. We remember to have eaten at Richmond, at a dinner, we believe chiefly of gardeners, portions of some of the most beautifully grown pine-apples, that perhaps were ever put on a table, and we hesitate not to say they were the worst and poorest in flavor that we ever tasted.

We have al.o tasted several times the heavy Providence pines, but we well remember putting a stunted Providence pine – one which weighed under two pounds might well be so called-before several pine growers – and as the crown was pulled out. and the stalk cut close, before it was put down, and thus the only evidence of the variety removed; it was pronounced to be a splendid flavor, equal to anything they knew, nor were they easily persuaded it was a Providence, until the plant it came from, and the crown, were shown as proofs.

The difficulty of persuading people that large fruit is worse than small arises from the fact, that larger kinds of fruit are raised constantly, and many of them real improvements on old varieties, and this makes people familiar with larger fruit, that supersedes altogether many of the inferior and older kinds, so that we are met by prejudices against small fruit, but we cannot too strongly impress upon the mind that to be a judge, the fruit to be compared must be the same variety.

Take a Moor Park apricot, which may be grown larger than any other kind that we are acquainted with; on the same tree that in some parts grows this fine fruit, may be occasionally found some deeply coloured stunted fruit, speckled as if blighted. These are invariably of splendid flavour. So much for the general principle that we have laid down, the blighted, stunted, mis-shaped fruits have been as long growing as the finer and larger ones, thus establishing the principle, or rather confirming the truth of the principle laid down, that rapid growth reduces the flavour, and that the loss of the essential flavour is an evil in fruit, but a good in vegetables.

But in one thing all will agree: there is but one opinion of the fact, that mild turnips, mild radishes, mild cabbage, mild every thing in the list of culinary vegetables must be the best. This then ought always to be thought of when you are growing things. The gardener, who exhibits for flavour, should never choose the largest fruit. The Horticultural Society has always given prizes for size, and this has led not only to extravagant growth but also to the cultivation of large and poor sorts of fruit, instead of those more distinguished for flavour than beauty. At country exhibitions where everything is judged by flavour, the best effects are produced. We should like to see this more attended to in the metropolis, and we are certain that the fruit growers have only to study the principles which we have now laid down to induce them to direct their attention more to the flavour than the size and beauty of the fruit.’

Geelong Advertiser 1850

National Gallery Offal Dinner

Oliver Peyton caught me at a weak moment. It was during a long day’s filming of the latest series of the Great British Menu. He said. ‘Why don’t you do one of our Friday Night Socials?’ ‘What would I have to do?’ ‘Just cook anything you like?’ ‘Offal?’ ‘Fantastic’. And then I forgot all about it until one of Oliver’s helpers sent me an email reminding of my undertaking. Oh my golly. It’s one thing cooking for a few of your nearest and dearest, quite another cooking for, what was it going to be, 30? 40? 60?

In the end I cooked enough for a mighty army. When I say I cooked, well, I did spend from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm trimming, cutting, dicing and slicing kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs and sweetbreads, but, in truth, the real cooking was done by Gillan Kingstree and his team of skilled practitioners. They hardly broke sweat. I was never not sweating. But it all went out, and do you know, it was pretty damn good. About 30 hardy souls actually turned out to eat iy , but that was fine by me. And there were two delectable young women who not only ate everything in front of them, but then took a fair amount of the left over sweetbreads away in a doggy bag. Civilisation and civility isn’t dead.

CORATELLA D’AGNELLO

An Italian classic. You can find variations almost anywhere. This version is based on one I enjoy almost every year at L’Uliveto in the Abruzzo. Their version has spleen and intestines in it, too.

Serves 6

Ikg assorted lamb innards (heart, liver, lungs, kidneys)
2 onions
2 dried chillis
2 cloves garlic
olive oil,
white wine
sage, rosemary, marjoram, thyme, basil, olive oil, a laurel leaf
vinegar

Dice the lamb’s innards into bite-sized nuggets
Slice the onion, and chop the garlic and dried chilli. Fry until the onion I soft. Add the sliced lung and cook ten more minutes, adding a little white wine water if need be to keep the pot from drying out. Simmer 10 minutes more and add the liver. Continue simmering for 4-5 more minutes

When all are cooked, take of the heat and mix in all the herbs slowly together with a touch of fine vinegar and lemon juice.
Serve on slices of toasted ciabatta

SALAD OF SPICED DUCK’S HEARTS & LIVERS
FRISEE, CHICORY & SHERRY VINAIGRETTE

Serves 4

1 Endives Frisee
1 Chicory

400g duck hearts & livers
1 tbsp of mixed ground spice (star anise, coriander, all spice, black pepper, and cumin)
salt
75g butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp sherry vinegar

Roll the hearts & livers in the mixed spices until well coated. Heat the butter and vegetable oil until foaming. Toss in the hearts & livers into the frying pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes, turning over. Add the sherry vinegar. Divide up enough endive to make a decent showing on each plate. Scatter the hearts & livers over the endive on each plate. Season with salt.

BULLOCK SWEETBREADS WITH CARAMELISED ONIONS, CARROTS WITH BRAISING LIQUOR

Veal sweetbreads are v. expensive, even when you can find them. But then I thought, most cattle are killed between about 18-24 months old, when they’re still teenagers, effectively. I reasoned that their sweetbreads would be a) delicious and b) cheap. I was right on both counts. The membrane is much heavier than on conventional calves sweetbreads, but don’t spend hours trying to remove it all. It disappears with long, slow, gently cooking. 1 throat sweetbread per person should be enough.
Serves 4.
4 sweetbreads, soaked and cleaned

75 g unsalted butter +
1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 onions

400g carrots

250 ml sherry

250ml chicken stock

Origano (optional)
Juice of ½ lemon
Finely slice the onion and cut the carrots into chunks. Heat the butter and oil in a sauté pan or casserole until foaming. Add the sliced onion and fry until lightly caremalised. Add the sweetbreads Add sherry and allow to bubble away for a minute or so. Place the sweetbreads on top of the onion. Add the carrots and chicken stock. Clap the lid on and stew very gently for 2, possibly 3 hours to make sure the membrane has melted sufficiently. Turn up the heat to reduce the juices until they’re as you want them. Don’t over reduce. Add the lemon juice and swirl around. Chop and scatter the origano. Put the lid back on and leave for a couple of minutes before serving up.
Serve with 1 potato the same size & shape as the sweetbread and wilted spinach.

BLOOD ORANGE TART

This is a variation on my sister-in-law, Dilou’s, peerless lemon tart, the finest lemon tart in the world.

Pastry
150g flour
70g well chilled butter
6tbsp cold water

Put the flour into a bowl. Grate the butter into it. (This is a brilliant tip, if you didn’t know it). Mix lightly with your fingertips until the butter is well worked into the flour. Add the water tablespoon by tablespoon until you have a nice coherent mass. Wrap in Clingfilm and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Turn the oven on to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Grease a flan dish generously with butter. Roll out the pastry and line the flan dish with it. It should be thin, but making sure there are no cracks or holes. There’s no need to blind bake the pastry.

Blood orange Filling

200g sugar
2 whole eggs
1 Blood orange
1 lemon
120g butter

Melt the butter in a pan. Put the sugar into a bowl or food processor. Grate the peel of the orange and lemon into it. Add the eggs. Add them juice of orange and the lemon. Whiz everything. Continue whizzing as you add the melted butter.

Baking

Pour the mixture into the pastry shell and bake for 25-35 minutes. Check to see if the tart matches the description above. If not, you can continue baking or pop it under a grill until it does. I would put a tray underneath the tart because, no matter how hard I try, melted butter always seems to leak out and end up on the floor of the oven.

BLOOD ORANGE GRANITA

715ml blood orange juice
zest of 1 orange
Juice of ½ lemon

75g caster sugar (or 75 ml sugar syrup)
Bring the blood orange juice and zest to a gentle heat. Add he sugar and whisk until the sugar has dissolved. If you’re using syrup, you don’t need to do this. Add the lemon juice. Decant into a plastic container and pop into the freezer. Check from time to time to see how it’s freezing. As crystals form around the edge of the container, stir with a fork. Do this at regular internals until you have the perfect granita. The crystals should be quite large but soft. Serve with the tart.

To horse, to horse!

Of course it’s scandalous. Foul foreign horsemeat instead of good,decent beef in burgers and lasagnas. Is nothing sacred any more!

But should we be surprised? It’s not as if this is the first time this has happened. Remember when Panorama revealed that beef and pork protein mysteriously found its way into chicken breasts from Holland in 2003? The chicken breasts, if I remember rightly, came from Thailand. Or was it Brazil? And the Dioxin Affair of 1999. If nothing else, as if we didn’t know it already, the latest outrage has shown just how haphazard, not to say shambolic, our system for testing food products is. It makes you wonder what other substances we may have ingested unwittingly over the years.

You can blame it on the beastly EEC, on the Mafia or those unscrupulous Rumanian villains or whoever you like, but the truth of the matter that it is the system that we have allowed to dominate our food production and retailing that lies at the heart of this mess. If you think of all the links in the chain – live animal merchant; abattoir; meat processor; packager; manufacturer; retailer, not to mention the transport companies who will take the animals to the abattoir, carry the carcasses to the processor, transfer the processed meat to the packaging plant and from the packaging plant to the retailer who then has to distribute the delights to their stores – and reckon they’ve all got to have their cut, and still sell the product at the lowest possible price – £1.60 for 360g Findus ‘Beef’ Lasagna at Tesco’s according to mysupermarket.com this morning – it’s not surprising that some unannounced items find their way into the food chain.

That’s what you get with a food industry that is a) globalize; and b) fixated with price. When you have a situation in which you have to reconcile two contrary forces – the imperative of selling food as cheaply as possible vs. the imperative for retailers to make 5% profit margins to pass on to their shareholders in the form of dividends, inevitably something has got to give.

It’s partly our own fault. We have delegated all responsibility for maintaining the integrity of our food to other people, politicians, bureaucrats, retailers, anyone but ourselves. We have stopped challenging a system, which is manifestly a fabulous combination of incompetence, corruption and venality, and based on a morality in which good means 5% profit margins and bad means anything less. With the docility of sheep, we have accepted the bland reassurances of politicians and the people who run supermarkets that everything is fine in their hands and that we have nothing to worry about.

Oddly enough, with horsemeat, we really do have nothing to worry about, or very little in terms of danger to our health. Horse is a delicious, fine- sweetish, grained meat. It’s highly nutritious, low in fat and cholesterol and easy to digest, and certainly much better for you than cheap beef. But as anyone who down a gulp of water thinking it to be a glass of gin (or vise versa), not finding what you expect is a nasty shock. Although, come to think of it, it says a good deal about the state of the public taste buds that no one, as far as I know, has complained about the burgers or lasagnas on the grounds of taste.

Partridge baked in bread

This recipe is based on one which I found, believe it or not, in Francesco’s Kitchen by the disarmingly charming Francesco da Mosto. It’s full of pretty picture of Venice, but, to my surprise, it turns out to be an extremely good cook book, with a great deal of intriguing information. He says the recipe comes from Treviso. Your partridges should be plucked and ready to go. You can use the technique just as well with pheasant, guinea fowl, or, I dare say, chicken. You’d just have to vary the cooking times, and put up with the fact that the bird emerges from its bread sarcophagus pale and interesting rather than tanned and sexy. But the flesh is juicy, the flavour intense, the visual impact impressive. Cooked this way, people know you’ve taken trouble. Signor da Mosto stuffs his birds. I didn’t. I served my partridges with cubed potatoes fried in rape seed oil and creamed cabbage. Very jolly.

Serves 2

750g self raising flour
2 tbsp of sea salt
lots of pepper
2 1/4 lemons
Enough shavings of bacon, pancetta or prosciutto to cover the breats of each partridge. The amount will depend on the size of the slices.

Turn on you oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Season the inside of the partridges and pop a quarter of a lemon inside the cavity of each. Add the salt and lots of pepper to the flour, Mix in well. Add the water – 200 – 250 ml – to and mix until you have a soft dough. It shouldn’t be sticky. Take half the dough and roll it out so that it’s large enough to envelope the bird. Place the partridge in the middle and cover with the fragrant shavings of bacon, pancetta or prosciutto. Wrap the dough around the bird and seal the edges thoroughly. Do the same with the other bird. Put them on a baking tray and slide into the over. Cook for 40-45 minutes. It’s a pretty forgiving way to cook a bird which can so easily turn to dry fibres.
.

CREAMED CABBAGE WITH CURED PIG’S CHEEK

1 small January king
1 onion
150 g cured pig’s cheek (or streaky bacon)
A smear of vegetable oil
150 ml white wine
150ml double cream
1 tsp juniper berries
salt & pepper

Cut the pig’s cheek/streaky bacon into bits the size of a baby’s little finger. Put into a pan with a little oil and fry gently until the fat runs. Thinly slice the onion and add to the pan. Fry gently until soft. Thinly slice the cabbage, getting rid of any core or heavy ribs. Rinse thoroughly and drain. Put into a pan with the juniper berries and the wine. Cook over a highish heat until the cabbage has softened but still has a bit of crunch and the wine has reduced. Add the cream and bring to the boil, and the dish is not ready

The greatest restaurant in the world

Dorego’s, there’s nowhere quite like it. Never has been, I dare say. One of a kind, a sort of a bar, a sort of a restaurant, seedy, louche, easy-paced, open-hearted, democratic, with the beauty of the truly idiosyncratic, sui generis, although that’s not a phrase that you’re likely to hear in Dorego’s. It looks out over where the Keiskamma River meets the Indian Ocean, one of the great views of the world. Well, for me, anyway. A place out of time, of dreams, memories, reflections and a solitary pelican.

There’s a sign on the left hand side of main tarmac-ed road about an hour out of East London in the Eastern Cape of South Africa as you head north towards Port Alfred. The sign is chipped and faded, a bit battered by time, weather and human usage. It reads ‘Hamburg’. Usually there are a few goats tugging at the scrub with absent-minded madness on the verge, and one or two people waiting patiently for a somewhat unpredictable local taxi’. Follow the sign and turn off onto the dirt track that lollops in a leisurely fashion across land undulating in voluptuous curves on either side, bare grass, smooth, stitched from time to time by fences of wire or scrub, pocked here and there by squares of tilled earth. You pass clusters of huts, some thatched, some topped with corrugated iron, all painted in the vivid pastel blues, yellows, pinks and greens and bold geometrical patterns favoured by the local Xhosas.

Go slowly, with a certain amount of trepidation, partly out of respect for the uncertain surface of the road, and partly because from time to time rangy cattle may move with elegant nonchalance across your path, taking no heed of your impatience. Or there are goats to scatter, or groups of people to edge round. A buckie – pick up truck – passes at speed in the other direction. The dust thrown up by its wheels hangs like a plume of smoke in the hot air. The brilliant sun shines through it in a golden haze.

Presently, down to your left, a kilometre or so away, a river, the river, the Keiskamma, comes into sight. Keiskamma means puff adder in Xhosa because the sinuous curves of the river mimic those of the snake. You can see how the river uncoils across the flat base of the valley, land on either side of the river, green and fertile, squared up into fields, before rising quite sharply to escarpments on either side, along one of which you are driving. The river is broad, half a kilometre across, perhaps, as brown as the tilled earth in the fields, glossy and smooth.

And then, up ahead, suddenly the rough track disappears beneath tarmac and you can see houses on the near river bank, a bit retro, suburban, painted white for the most part, a warning that Hamburg is just round the next bend.

Not that there’s much to the town, really. This part of South Africa was part of the Siskei, one of the ‘independent’ homelands set up at the height of the apartheid years following the doctrine of separate development established by Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, President 1958-1966. Except the Siskei was never remodelled in the way the rest of South Africa was, and Hamburg was never developed at all, not like the more famous, white, seaside towns, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Cape St Francis, did.

For which I, for one, am supremely happy. It has kept the place unspoiled by crass commercialisation and contemporary vulgarities. Hamburg is a time capsule of white vernacular architecture of sixty years ago, modest, kindly, unshowy by today’s standards, a bit tight-arsed if truth be told. True, in recent years one or two brave souls have built more modern houses and painted them myriad hued, picking up the colour sense of the huts speckling the surrounding land, respecting the spirit of the place.

Anyway, pass through the straggling town, past Mrs May’s Hole in the Wall For Fresh general store, and the ramshackle hotel, the town’s only one. Suddenly the road, having hugged the river bank, swoops up to your right, and away from the river.

But on your left is a dirt track that continues to keep faith with the river, broad and flat. Bounce along this and it leads you out towards the estuary proper, passed a sparsely occupied camping site spread out below a line of thick, dark green coastal scrub, to Dorego’s.

In a sense Dorego’s is more impressive at a distance than it is close to. It’s a large, solid, square, single-story wooden building on stilts as massive as a rugby prop-forward’s thighs beneath a classic thatched roof. A stoep – veranda – runs around the front and sides, with wooden steps leading up to it.

Assuming it’s open – not always a safe assumption with Dorego’s; opening hours tend to follow a whim of particular individuality – go in through the door into a broad open space, dark after the brilliant glare of the outside. In front of you there’s a pool table, in a remarkable state of preservation, giving the battering it gets nightly from Dorego’s well-oiled if not well-healed clientele, although you do need to lift one end if you want the balls back at the end of your allotted time. To your right is a small bar manned by Leslie.

Leslie, in some ways, is the heart and soul of Dorego’s. The place is owned by Dorego – I never knew his Christian name – a `Portguese refugee from Mozambique. Or rather it was owned by him until last year, when too many years of sitting in his sweat-sodden singlet and grubby shorts, his massive paunch resting on his thighs, guzzling Castle beers throughout the day, and sharing news, views and tales of the old days with his oddly assorted customers, finally caught up with him, and laid him in his coffin, leaving the diminutive Mrs Dorego and Leslie to look after the place as best they could.

Anyway, Leslie. Leslie is a large man with a moon face, which is some times hard to make out in the crepuscular gloom. He always moves at his own pace, which is deliberate in the most deliberate sense of the word. I have never seen Leslie hurry, even when the customers ate five deep and clamouring for their first, or hundred and first, drink of the day. Beer is the preferred tipple, cans of Castle mostly, kept chilled in an antiquated ice cream freezer behind the bar. There’s a small supply of Amstels for the better class of toper, a curious range of spirits to mix with Coke, and wine, in place of which you would be advised to drink aftershave. And these Leslie dispenses with placid benediction, never hurried, never flustered, never quicker, never slower.

There are a few ramshackle tables with ramshackle chairs ranged around the single space that serves as bar, pool hall, talking shop and, when the occasion demands, restaurant. Or you can take you drink out onto the stoep, and lean against the railings and look out over the river.

It’s later afternoon, mid-tide. The wide sand flats look like unrefined caster sugar, pale amber-gold. The blue-brown-slate water wanders, apparently as leisurely as Leslie, scrolling this way and that in a series of generous curves between the sand banks. Black stick figures punctuate different points of the riverscape, fishermen out after cobb and grunter. There are a couple of business like boats moored midstream. More fishermen. Away to the right, the river speeds through a narrow channel and then spreads out into a broad front, a quiet insistence confronting the booming, bullish, cream-capped rollers of the Indian Ocean, creating a great churning mass of conflicting currents.

And somewhere, on one of the sandbanks, is the solitary pelican. Now, pelicans are gregarious birds. Normally, they move in twos or more, formations of pelicans skimming just above the waves like squadrons of avian Pegasus flying boats. But not this one. Oddly, he’s never been given a name. He turned up on his tod years ago, and has remained here ever since. There have been the occasional rumours that he had found a mate at last, but these rumours have always proved chimeric. I don’t think Hamburg’s solitary pelican is gay. Like some humans, he just prefers his own company. He is what used to be described as a confirmed bachelor, and as such, he has become the mascot of Hamburg. If Hamburg had a crest, a solitary pelican would be on it.

And, suddenly, there he is, gliding effortlessly down onto the river, ruffling the smooth surface briefly, waddling up a sand bank, stretching his wings and shaking his feathers before sinking down onto his tummy and tucking his great bill back along his body and dozing off. He seems to have eaten well.

And so should we. The sharply sinking sun, and the violent African sunset with its concatenation of colour, have turned the river to the purest, rippling, liquid gold. In a few minutes it will be dark and the sky will be silvered with stars and the velvety blackness pricked with lights from the houses and the brightness thrown by Dorego’s will throw shadows across the grass around.

The menu at Dorego’s is even less extensive than the drinks at the bar. There are fresh oysters, from just along the coast. And then there’s a choice of piri-piri chicken or piri-piri fish or steak, the unique feature of which is a fried egg on top, Hamburg’s plebeian version of escalope de veau Holstein, if you like. And chips and salad and ice cream. That’s it, although if you ask ahead, you can get spicy Portuguese sausages and bacalhau, salt cod.

But food isn’t really about frills and fancy gear and plate poetry. Food is really about time and place and people and memory; people and memory most of all. That isn’t to say that the food at Dorego’s isn’t top notch – of its kind. Mrs Dorego, diminutive and neat as her husband was the reverse, masterminds the kitchen, and the oysters are silvery, slippery, saline, shot through with iodine. Now try the chicken. It’s pert and singing with spice, and as your teeth break the skin with a crisp rustle, you find there’s the sweet, earthy harmony of a bird that has lived a brisk, outdoor existence.

Not the chicken? Well, the fish, cobb or grunter depending on the day’s catch, has the muscular firmness and sparkle of something that, just a few hours before, was finning its way through ocean or river currents. And if the steaks aren’t exactly buttery tender, then as you chew, the amiable, musky, meaty juices pressed from the fibres of the meat make you realise that, when it comes to flavour, you may have to work at it, but I’ll take a touch of toughness over tenderness every time.

And so we gather, John and El and Lindsay and Lois and, in no particular order, Sarah, Emma, Lulu and Dana, and John Kincaid and his brother Morkel and anyone else who happens to be staying or shows up, and me. Someone chivies Leslie about the drinks, and the arguments and laughter and conversations and teasing and all the other hullballoo of family life start up again, and food arrives, two plates of oysters, gone in a twinkling, the shells stacked up in tottering towers, and tonight someone had the good sense to order up those sausages and bacalhau. You can tell there’s a fine sensibility at work in the kitchen, a cook who knows the pleasures of robust flavours and big textures and generous spirit. And the for those who can’t quite get their minds through the fiery heat of the sausages or the rich, rank, boiled-wool perfume of the salt cod or its macho saltiness, there are the piri-piri chicken and the steaks and the fish and chips, characteristically pale and soggy, and the excuse of a salad, but who cares because the warmth is there and the humour and the sense of well-being and affection and love, and you know, I know, just know, that this is a time and a place and a people who I will remember for ever, and that one day I will call it all to mind and write it down just as I remember it.

Dorego’s, River Road, Hamburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa

I wrote this a few years back to go into A Movable Feast, a compilation of essays about food and travel published by Lonely Planet. Since then, sadly, time has not dealt kindly with Dorego’s. It has changed hands, Leslie has gone. I’m told the food is a shadow of it’s former delight. Worse, that louche, accommodating, easy-going, agreeable spirit of place has slipped out of the door and away. But as I say, food is about time and place and memory, and as such Dorego’s stood, stands, in my canon as the Greatest Restaurant in the World.

Notes on Roasting Turkey

I have provided various alternatives . My preferred option is the 9-hour version,. This may seem perverse to some, but it always produces a magnificently succulent and juicy result, and is as easy as pie once you’ve grasped the principle of bringing the bird to the critical temperature between 62-65C throughout. This keeps all the natural juices and flavours of the bird where they belong, inside it. As we won’t be eating until 6.30 or so, there’s no need to get up in the middle of the night to put it on. I wouldn’t anyway. I’d just put it in at 50C when I went to bed.

There are some who swear by brining, and others have even more arcane methods. To be honest, I can’t be bothered

Nine hour Roast Turkey

Let’s deal with the hard part first. You have to buy yourself a meat thermometer for this . And you have to invest in a good bird. Nothing can turn a broiler turkey into something fit for the plate. I use a 5-6kg (12-14lb) bird to feed 10, which is enough to feed everyone on the day, will leave cold to be useful on Boxing Day, and not too much to get boring thereafter. If you have to cook a larger bird, you may have to cook it for longer. But not to worry; the principle remains the same.

Set your oven to the lowest possible setting, to 75C/165F/Gas ¼ (or less) if possible. Place the turkey in the roasting pan on its side, one thigh upwards. Add a little water to the roasting pan, and place it at the bottom of the oven. After three hours turn it over, so that the other thigh is upper most. After three hours more turn it breast down.. (You rotate the body because the legs and thighs take longer to cook than the rest of the bird, so it needs more exposure to a higher heat. This is less of a consideration if you have a convection oven, in which the heat is more consistently spread).

I hour before you want to eat it, take it out of the oven. Turn up the oven to maximum heat At this stage the turkey will still look much as did when it went in, not very appetizing. So turn the turkey breast upwards in the classic position. Rub a little butter all over the skin and sprinkle with salt. Pop it back into the now hot oven and roast until ell tanned all over, basting from time to time. This should take 15-20 minutes. Turn the oven off and let the turkey rest until you want to eat it, for 30-40 minutes.

That’s all you have to do. Well, almost. You do have to take it’s temperature at various times, let’s say when you’re turning to over. Just keep in mind the idea is to bring bird’s internal temperature very slowly to 62-65C. It’s so seasy. There’s non need for those abstruse calculations of so many minutes at one temperature, and then so many minutes art another. No worry about over cooking or under cooking. No hovering, no worrying, no hassle. If you want Christmas dinner, put it in at midday or thereabouts. If it’s Christmas lunch you fancy, bung it just before you go to bed and check it when the kids come and bounce on your bed with their stockings.
If it goes a few degrees over 65C, don’t worry. If it doesn’t look as if its going to make 62 C just jack up the heat by 15 degrees or so. You may loose some of the juices along the way as the fibers tighten up, but it will still be a well succulent bird. Just keep monitoring the internal temperature. That’s the important part, because of you bring a piece of meat to 65C, and hold it there for 15 minutes, you will have killed off all the pathogens. It’s as well to put the thermometer probe into the breast at the thickest point, and the thigh, too, and also in that area where the thigh is tucked up close against the main body of the bird. As long as they’re all at 65C, you’re away, to do all the other bits and bobs

Conventional Turkey Roasting Guide

But if you feel safer doing it the traditional way, here’s a guide to keep anxiety and nerves at bay.

Temperature
220C/425F/gas 7 for 30-45 minutes, depending on size.
Turn down oven to 170/C/325F/Gas 3 and

Timing
Allow 30-40 mins per kg

5.5-7kg 3 1/2 – 4 hours
7-9kg 4-5 hours
9-12 kg 5-6 hours

Or

Temperature
170C/325F/Gas 3

Timing
5.5-7kg around 4 hours
7-9kg around 5 hours
9-12kg around 6 hours

Christmas Day

Obviously, the timing for some of this will depend on when you plan to eat. I have assumed a 1.30 call to the table. If you want eat later, just adjust the times accordingly.
I have put the timings, temperatures etc for roasting turkey into a separate blog.

7.35 Send children packing. Haul self out of bed. Look for Weekend Guardian foolproof guide to panic-free Christmas. Eventually discover that it has been used for cat litter. It’s not unusuable. Turn on oven (for temperature, timings, etc, turn to Notes on Roasting Turkey. If you’re using 9-hour method, the turkey should’ve been in before you went to bed. Aaaaah)

Breakfast (regret second nerve tonic of the previous night. Regret first nerve tonic because it led to second nerve tonic): Lightly boiled egg; a single slice of wholemeal toast with lashings of butter and soothing, energy-rich Kashmiri honey. Coffee. Tangerine. Rise from table fully energised.

8.am. Place turkey in oven (see Turkey Roasters Notes)

9.30 am. Start warming plates and serving dishes. Arrange tray for pre-lunch drinks, plus bowls for nibbles. Mop up sick from child who overdosed on chocolate coins in stocking. Blanch potatoes & parsnips for roasting.

10.am Bribe/browbeat/blackmail kids into laying table (under supervision). Check their handiwork. White wine to fridge. Draw corks on red wine. Baste turkey

10.30 Test wine. Test wine again. Window for present opening.

11.45 am. Panic. Forgot to baste turkey. Baste furiously. Put saucepan containing pudding in basin into ring. Add water until it comes 2/3 of gthe way up the side of the bowl. Bring slowly to boil (after checking that you have tied a string a round the rim to ensure easy lifting at the end of cooking). Turn down to an easy-going simmer. Baste turkey again for luck. Try and remember everything on checklist.

12.00 noon. Place saucepan of water on to boil for boiling brussel sprouts.

12.45. It’s too late to panic. Remove foil. Splash slug of marsala/madiera/vermouth/white port/white wine over the turkey. Make that a second slug. And one for the chef. Baste like billy-ho. Toss brussel sprouts into boiling water. Take cheese out of cool storage to bring to room temperature.

1pm. Move turkey to a warm spot where it can relax and unwind. Turn up oven to 200C/400F/gas 8 to crisp potatoes, parsnips, anything else. Degrease roasting pan. Use remaining juices/gunk to make gravy. Discover you’re forgotten cranberry sauce. Wonder what Nigel/Nigella would do. Realise you’re not them. Abandon cranberry sauce.

1.30 pm Knock back stiff drink. Call troops to table. Begin carving. Brace yourself for “Why do we have to have turkey every Christmas?” “Turkey is sooooooooo boring.” “And it doesn’t taste of anything.” “It looks wonderful, dear.” Serve and eat.

2.45pm(approx). Lift pudding from water and turn out onto plate. Olace sprig of holly on top. Heat one small glass of brandy in saucepan until warm. Pour over pudding. Ignite. Stand by for “You know I hate Christmas pudding.” “Christmas pudding is soooooo boring.” “Why do we have to have Christmas pudding every year?” “It looks lovely, dear. Your mother’s recipe?”

3.45pm Subside into armchair and slide into well-deserved slumber.